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E.—lb

has no control, that its own usefulness is materially affected from diminished funds, and the cost of education is increased; but, worse still, the progress of education is greatly retarded. It appears to me that, under existing circumstances, the capital which is annually invested by the Board for the spread of education amongst the people is, in this district, far from producing results which the Board has a right to expect; for the majority of children cannot make any real progress with an attendance at school such as I have just pointed out. I have more than once stated to the Board—and it is based upon my experience as a schoolmaster of many years standing—that an attendance at school of less than two hundred and fifty times in a year is perfectly useless for examination purposes, and the money might as well be thrown into the sea as spent upon a class of children who learn nigh to nothing themselves, retard the general progress of those children who do attend well, and acquire at home habits of indifference and irregularity, which are the bane of all progress. I do not know whether parental authority and oversight, and the active influences of home life, are being stifled by State aid, but it appears to me evident that many .of the parents do not realize that they have duties to perform in connection with the training and educating of their children. A. schoolhouse and a schoolmaster typify to them the ideal of educational requirements, and they seem to imagine that their children as they grow in years will also grow in knowledge so long as the schoolhouse and schoolmaster exist among them, whether the children attend school or not. I cannot help feeling that it would' be a wise provision if parents had to pay for the education of their own children on neglecting to send them to school at least half the times the schools are opened during the year. Such a plan would obviate the enforcement by Committees of the compulsory clause, and it would teach, by the best of experiences, those parents whom it is so desirable to teach that their own neglect is the cause of their own punishment. Class Subjects—True Training or Childeen. —I now proceed to deal with the class subjects on which all my tabulations as to the general progress of education are based. It seems to me that much greater attention should be given to the consideration of these subjects, and especially as to their relative value in enlarging the conceptive and reflective faculties of children by and through the active operation of the senses. For, after all, the complexed organizations of departments, education districts, and school districts, form merely the machinery to assist in the more rapid attainment of this end. The machinery of supervision may be perfect, the Board may continue to erect schoolhouses, and it may have the entire co-operation of the district Committees in the enforcement of attendance, but if the subjects of study are not satisfactory all their efforts will lead to disappointment and failure. I cannot say that I am satisfied with the progress made by the district in education matters during the year. In the following remarks reasons will be given to show that there are difficulties to be combated by teachers which must be removed before the results in education are commensurate with the economical expenditure of time and money. I have a very strong desire to see that the education, however elementary, which is given in connection with the class subjects to the children attending the schools under the Board, is of such a nature that it shall at least be of some practical use to them in whatever station of life they might be called upon to occupy. There are three aspects of life in this district —town, country, bush —and the condition of the people in each of these places is different from the other two —the town from the country, the country from the bush, and also the bush aspect of life is farther removed from the town than from the country. As the aspects are different, so are the conceptions of the people. The modes of life, the surroundings, the pursuits of the people in the bush, have little in common with the mode of life, the surroundings, and the pursuits of the people in the town, and it seems only natural to infer that the education of the children should be built upon these different aspects of living. But what is the case at present ? I am required to go into town, country, and bush schools, and balance the work of each pupil by the same rigid standard. There is no differentiation in the subjects for examination, no allowance made for the varying modes of thought consequent on the differences in the aspects of location, no evidence to show that the subjects of study are made subjective to the future needs of the children in the business of life, and no discrimination allowed on the part of the Inspector. Through the adoption of this stereotyped system of judging results, it can scarcely be realized to what an extent the memory, to the neglect of everything else, is being employed in this district in preparing the children for the standard examination. In history, in geography, in grammar, and even in reading, it is the memory, and it alone, that is brought into active operation. Teachers are forced to use what to them is the only mode of escape from danger in the annual examinations, and the children, unable to complain of the stones given to them instead of bread, become the victims of, what is to me, a cruel and unnatural system of teaching. I understand an educated child is one taught to observe, to think, and to act, but the syllabus on which I have to examine requires from the children little observation and less thinking. A surfeit of the memory, and a parrot-like reproduction, are the only things needed to pass the standard requirements, and the thoughtful and observant children—deemed slow because they have little or no memory for remembering abstract information —are passed over as failures. It may be taken as an axiom that the real education of children can only be based upon their early surroundings, and their knowledge will vary in proportion to the use made by a teacher of the social, physical, and political aspects of the district in which his school might be placed. But in the standard requirements a teacher is unable to follow this course. He must bend his mode of teaching to an artificial system, utterly at variance with the true necessities of education, and the consequence is that the memory sits in state in the schools as the first thing to be regarded in the education of youth. Standabd Abeangement of English Histoey and G-eogba.piiy Unsatisfactoey.—The children cannot conceive the facts of English history, they cannot conceive the facts of outside political geography, nor can they conceive the definitions of English grammar, unless each subject is pursued in a different manner from the present requirements of the broad sheet. Why are the children in this district to go in imagination to a country they have never seen, and to a period in its history which they nor I can duly realize, to obtain their first conceptions of history? And what is the use of children in the bush learning a list of dates in English history having reference to a number of Royal Houses from the Saxons to the Brunswicks, or of being able to repeat a number of " interesting facts " connected with each period ? Without considering the question of the utter impossibility of children